The American Heritage dictionary defines habit as a recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behavior that is acquired through frequent repetition. As human beings, this pattern of behavior can be found in many things we do. From the type of drink we choose at a bar (Tequila, Señor!) to even the way we dress. Habitual patterns are often present many times during our daily life.

So what does this have to do with diving, you ask? While I may call my weekly outings a ‘new adventure’, deep down inside there is a pattern to the places I go and the things I do. While I can not control things like the weather conditions, going to many of the same reefs I have visited before, there is a certain assurance as to what I will see and experience. Breaking this habit is not an easy thing!

Sometimes, though, the benefits of breaking this pattern far exceed the assurance of this weekly habit. So was the case for March 15th, 2003. Having written this date down on my calendar a couple of months in advance, I was awaiting this day with some anticipation. Whether it was to be good or bad was the question yet to remain—for any trip that begins with the words of Papa saying, “Lock up the girls and hide the booze. I’m coming to town!” has got to strike some fear in me. Just in case though, I assured him that I’d be waiting…

With the day upon me, I awoke up before the break of dawn as I do every weekend and packed my things in my Jeep and headed south towards the Keys. The peaceful drive along US1 during these early morning hours is always a welcome treat. With some thoughts (and a particular girl) roaming my mind and some Garth Brooks playing on the radio the drive down to the Keys was the start of a wonderful day. Of course, the gray skies and thundershower I was going through would have anyone thinking differently but I was in my happy place with a positive outlook on the day to come.

Passing Quiescence (my weekly dive hangout) was the first sign of a breaking habit. Continuing south along US1, approximately 20 minutes later (you can’t speed in Key Largo unless you want a ticket) I arrived at Conch Republic—a cozy little dive shop hidden alongside one of the hundreds of bridges in the Florida Keys. Once inside, I was welcomed by the friendly folks who operate this very nice dive shop. There were a couple of people roaming around the dive shop observing the beautiful reef tank, the numerous underwater photographs hanging on the wall or doing a little scuba shopping (the worse of all addictions!). While I was filling out some of the usual scuba paperwork, I overheard the gentleman behind the counter call out a name I had heard before—Ms. Suzuki. As I turned to see who she was, there stood a young lady with a smile and charismatic personality that perfectly matched her apparent personality on the Diver2Diver (www.scubadiving.com) message forum. As I turned to her and said, “Spritely Mermaid?” she smiled and said, “Yes.” I introduced myself and thus began “…the beginning of a beautiful friendship—Casablanca.”

Back at the boat, as I was setting up my gear, I heard from a far the words, “Who’s Laz?” Pondering for a moment whether I should respond in fear of losing my women and my booze, it quickly became apparent to me that it was safe to respond—for I had neither women nor booze to be taken. I raised my hand as I walked towards a very gleeful-looking gentleman who responded with, “I’m Papa!” Who was to think this is the same Papa that on the message boards was causing me such dire straits (all in good fun)?

After our brief introduction and a long-awaited smile between each other, he set about introducing me to some of the folks on the dive boat. As it turns out, I was surrounded by fellow D2Ders and some fellow digital photoGs (Karl Dietz and his lovely wife)—what a treat!

As the boat left the dock and was on its way to places unknown (to me), we finally agreed on our first destination—The Eagle. Ironically enough, with my many years of diving in the Keys, I have never dived this wreck before. Excitement stirred in the air as we prepared to enter the water to see what was awaiting us below. With thoughts of fish and coral-life aplenty, we descended down the buoy line attached to the bow of the wreck. With her hull resting in ~110 ft of water, on our way down, the far from perfect visibility (~40ft) soon gave way to the sight of an awe inspiring vision. There she laid on the sand on her side, adorned in corals in all the colors of the rainbow with the fish life to match.

Looking around I noticed fellow D2Ders diving to different areas of the wreck, some dropped down to the sand, other headed towards the center of the wreck in hopes of seeing the elusive Goliath Groupers that made this wreck their home. Karl, his wife, and I settled on cruising a small piece of the port side of the boat with our cameras on hand. As we drifted towards the center of the boat, we swam out to one of the coral encrusted towers to view and photograph this area. Awed by its healthy coral diversity, I took a couple of photographs. The first thing that came to my mind was the thought of making this wreck one of the chosen areas for a reef clean-up after seeing quite a bit of fishing line tangled around it—what a shame!

As I continued to explore this area, all of a sudden a school of sardines raced by as they were chased by some large jacks that were hoping to make of a free lunch.

Scenes from The Blue Planet played in my head as I hoped to see a mob of swordfish or sharks encircling this baitball. A few seconds and a thousand-plus fish later, I spotted someone in the background that looked very familiar. Capturing some of the scene and a super model (that would be me) with his “I don’t need no stinkin’ film” video camera, Papa came in for a closer look.

I turned to take a quick snapshot or two…

..and Papa was gone. At the most inopportune moment too as I had just found a tiny octopus roaming along the top of the wreck. I quickly waved over Karl and his wife so that they can see and photograph the little guy and, as I watched them do their magic, I noticed from a far two divers laughing their butts off after a friendly game of rock, scissors, paper and bomb(?).

Who else would be doing such a thing at about 90ft. of water? No one other than the famous Ms. Spritely Mermaid and her partner-in-crime brother! I wave them down and when I show them the octopus, all of a sudden I begin to hear a loud, cute, squeaky laugh in surround-sound. I begin looking for the excess bubbles and notice that it’s no other than Spritely giggling herself out of a full tank of air at the sight of what she thought was an armless little octopus. Little did she know that, like the rest of us divers, we were using all the arms we had available to cover our ears from this underwater, high-pitched giggling. After seeing that smile on her face, the idea was inevitable—I must get of photo of the octopus and Spritely together—and she kindly accepted the proposal.

I have pointed out the octopus for those who can’t see it.

Yes, it’s a real octopus—unlike the turtle in my last trip report. LOL!

On our way up, we stopped at fifteen feet for our safety stop and celebrated the Dietz’s 100th dive. WOOOHOOO!! Congrats, you guys!

Of course, I was the last to get back on the boat after spending more than 3 minutes at the safety stop observing all the plankton life drifting by. I just love this stuff!

Our next destination, a reef that has always aroused some interest because of its name—Hens and Chickens. This shallow, close to shore reef has some of the healthiest gorgonians and hard corals I have seen in the Keys. With a max depth of around 20ft, this was the perfect reef to do a little macro hunting (with a camera, of course).

As it is almost a curse, the angels followed me (closely) at this reef too so there were a number of times I had to switch over to fish-portrait mode (or was that macro) on my camera in order to get a few shots…

Along the way, I found an area of turtle grass with some small patches of reef scattered in the distance. In hopes of finding that elusive frog fish (I know they exist in the Keys) or a seahorse or twenty, I swam to one of these little oases in hopes of finding something. Instead, I was greeted by this cute little juvenile blue angel who darted in and out of the reef…

What didn’t become apparent to me at first as I looked through the LCD was what was lurking in the background—that was, until I noticed the background moving—a spotted eel! After swimming around the small little reef I never did find the head of this fella and not wanting to bother the guy I decided to not poke him as I’ve seen other divers do in order to get their attention. A couple of extra snapshots of the little blue angel and I high-tailed it back to the boat as my hour was almost done.

What would have normally been the end of a terrific day of diving for me was only the first half. Like I said, it’s all about breaking those old habits! Back at port, I made a quick run to McDonalds to grab something to eat as I was to embarrassed to take up Spritely’s offer to eat one of her sandwiches (Or was that a survival instinct on my behalf? LOL!). A quick lunch and a quick swap of the batteries in my camera and we were back onboard for another set of dives.

With the skies finally clearing up a bit, the boat motored through the idle zone while we decided on our next dive destination. After someone (guess who?) suggested the next dive site, a couple of comments were inevitable. Our next stop—Triple X!

As we arrived at the site, we broke up into groups in order to do this 40-50ft drift dive. Partnering up with some of the gang and Spritely kindly caring the dive flag, we headed towards the bottom and began our slow drift to nowhere. Wearing my 2.5mil suit the semi-cold water temperature was bearable as long as I did not enter the bottom five feet of water where a cold thermocline drifted by. Making a couple of daring dives into that thermocline to get a photograph or two, I quickly ascended a few feet where everyone else hovered to stay in the warmer water.

With a name like Triple X, there was little action going on around us. After a while of drifting around, one thing became apparent, we were now all drifting at around 20-25ft on a 45-50ft reef. As our body core temperature dropped, our drift dive turned into an hour long, verrrry sloooow ascent. Every once in a while I would dip down into the cold thermocline and pop back up so that the upper cold water would feel warm again (it’s all psychological!).

Glad to be back on the boat, I quickly warmed up in the Florida sun to get ready for our next dive at the Snapper Ledges. Once in the water, one thing became apparent on this shallow reef—this should have been called Grunt Ledges…

Swimming through the hundreds of grunts (and the occasional snapper) was lots of fun and while combing the edge of the reef I came upon this happy little eel who also broke from its habitual characteristics of scaring the divers away and instead offered me this real close-up (macro even) smile.

After a whole day of diving with new friends in new dive sites, the day’s lesson was apparent.

Breaking from the day-to-day habit can usually turn up to be a day filled with true adventure, plenty of laughs, good whole-hearted fun and the chance to meet new friends. Take a risk for as Garth Brook’s lyrics say, “Life is not tried, it is merely survived, if you’re standing outside the fire.” Experience something outside the norm—dive that place you’ve always passed up a million times. Who knows? You might enjoy it or at worst—you’ll just end up losing your women and your booze

Like you don't know a pair of Ikelite DS-125s when you see them! The gentleman with the camera is the captain of the boat and he had just picked up Karl Dietz's Ikelite Nikon Coolpix 5000 with dual DS-125s as we were returning to the boat. Karl's setup is very neat indeed and I especially like the magnifier on the back of his Ikelite case that projects the image on the LCD to almost IMAX size.

I'll try to get a couple of views of the magnifier online this weekend. I bought this housing from Marc Furth. He made the magnifier, so I don't really know how it was done. It does work well!

It appears to be several layers of acrylic bonded together, polished, painted black around the perimeter and then permanently bonded to the back of the housing. I expect the length of the lens and the radius of the curved polished top is critical. Not to be tried at home................

I have contacted Phil Williams of PhotoSolve about this type of gizmo. He makes them for cameras with LCD screens. He sent me one before I went to Grand Cayman but the depth of field of the unit is very shallow and it did not focus through the housing. He's thinking about it and I will post a note if he decides to manufacture one for underwater housing applications.